Wednesday, February 24, 2010

This morning I made a major life decision. Maybe not so major to you, but very much so to me. I decided instead of following my plan for the last three years and getting my Masters in English Lit, I'm going to get my Masters in FIne Arts in Creative Writing. This is huge, because it's about not settling for the middling road I want my life to be and following the dreams of what my future could be.

We've all seen that movie about the sturggling writer who teaches on the side. While I want to teach eventually, this is of no doubt, there's nothing stopping me from going after my dreams of what I really want to do, which is not write about writing, but actually write. All my heroes did it so why can't I.

The only difference in my head between a Masters in English Lit and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is talent and about a years worth of furious writing to build up a portfolio. While a year ago I would have seen this as some sort of procrastination, today I see it as following a dream. So I have about a year. A year in which I intend to write a story a week and work on the novel that I've restarted three times in the last 2 months. A year to prove to myself that the words in my head can be put together confidently and to tell a story for entertainment and for my own cerebral gratification.

And I look at this not as procrastiation but following what I want to do, grabbing the dream and going with it. There's nothing holding me back, right. I'm in the perfect place to do this, right here, right now.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

...nothing I ever wanted to feel. Not that I don't want to feel anything because we all want, or have the basic human need to feel something, anything at all.

Sometimes it seems like it's just easier not to feel. To withdraw yourself and be able to not feel like the rest of humanity.

I suppose at some level this is what being misanthropic is really like.

I want to go back and learn more but I'm not sure what that really accomplishes at the end of the day. I want to teach but I sometimes am nervous that there's nothing left to teach in this world we live in.

Another misanthropic thought.

I can't really define what perfect is because I've never met it. (Well this not being entirely true. I sometimes, on a daily basis, think I rub up against perfect on a regular basis, but I'm often too afraid to look it in the eye and tell it what i think. What I really think.)

Nobody ever claimed that life would be easy. We lose things before we ever had a chance to actually have them. I've never had any pre-conceived notions about what other people should have or be, because I can't begin to understand what I should be...sometimes though you just want to smile. Sometimes you just want to laugh.

I think we all long for that feeling deep inside of being warm and centered.

All the psychologists would likely say (well maybe not all the psychologists...maybe just some of them) that you have to find this happiness and warmth within yourself before you can look for it from another person.

Bullshit.

"I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel."

Because he really is. That's all that comes to mind in these long remembrances of thoughts and memories for how we are supposed to act, how we are supposed to be.

White picket fences, 2.5 children and a dog.

When really all we want is to smile and laugh and feel good making someone else feel good.